The neck of a container typically has an inside diameter, referred to as the "I" dimension, which is fairly large in relation to the overall outer diameter, referred to as the "E" dimension. The purpose of providing such a large opening relative to the entire neck of the container is to facilitate a faster filling operation during production. However, when a viscous product is placed within a container having such a neck finish, the opening provided by that finish is often too large and not suitable for proper dispensing of the product. Therefore, a smaller diameter opening is required. With the methods utilized for molding of containers, namely extrusion blow molding, and injection blow molding, it would be extremely difficult to mold a container neck finish with a smaller opening without substantially increasing the thickness of the wall of the neck, and therefore increasing the amount of material required to produce each container.
To keep the amount of material needed at a minimum, orifice reducers have been developed. These reducers are placed on the sealing surface of the neck finish of a container and serve to provide a narrower orifice through which the product in the container can be dispensed. These reducers are typically a disk which attaches to the neck finish of the container. The disk is provided with an orifice smaller than that of the neck finish.
Certain products are composed of multiple phases which need to be kept separate until ready for use. In order to keep the phases separate, this type of formula has been packaged in multiple containers where each container is attached to the other to form a single unit. The problem with the use of this style package is that each container has its own neck finish, and thus its own closure. In order for the consumer to access the product, the consumer must remove each closure, pour out the product, and then replace the closure in order to avoid spillage.
Developments have been made in which a multiple chamber container has been molded wherein the container has a single neck finish and dividing walls extend throughout the container and the neck finish to keep the chambers separate. These containers have been found useful for keeping the phases of a multi-phase formula separate while providing a single neck finish. When these containers are molded, however, they still need to have a sufficient area through which each phase of the product can be filled into its respective container chamber. Thus, the opening within the neck needs to be fairly wide for each chamber.
The present invention provides for an orifice reducer for use with multiple chambered containers having a single neck finish. The orifice reducer is simple to manufacture, and is effective in allowing for the proper dispensing of a product having more than one phase, wherein each phase is contained within a different chamber of a container.